


Practice Makes Perfect

by thecolorofstars



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 22:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecolorofstars/pseuds/thecolorofstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a small little set of fics that have no relation. They're mostly for written for friends or as nameless practice drabbles. Eventually, some of them may be edited and reposted when I delete this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Long Distance

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine your OTP successfully working out a long distance relationship in which they Skype every night for at least four hours.

God damn it, where is that boy? It’s a full thirty minutes and counting past when he should have been home. What if something happened to him? He’s not in the best part of town, maybe someone jumped him or something? What if someone tried to rob the place that he works at? No, he works at a pizza delivery place. Well, maybe someone he delivered to tried to rob him. What if they kidnapped him and are holding him for ransom? I don’t have enough money to pay. 

Oh thank god.

“There he is! Sorry, Jade, but I’ve got to go now.”

“No problem, Rose! Tell Dave I said hi!”

“Sure thing. Have a safe flight and say hello to John for me.”

“Okay! Good night!”

Within moments of hanging up with Jade, I’m getting called by a certain blond idiot.

“Hey!” he grins when I pick up, waving into the webcam.

“It’s been too long, Strider,” I deadpan, glancing at the clock. “You’re late.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, his face falling. “They kept me late at work and I got stuck in traffic.”

After a moment of staring him down, I roll my eyes and he cracks a smile. Dave only smiles for me, I think. I’ve never seen him smile a real smile for anyone else. With careful movements, I set the laptop on the kitchen counter and angle it so I can put away the groceries that have been sitting forgotten by the fridge.

“So, Dave, when are you flying in?”

There’s a pause that grows into an uncomfortable silence

“Oh shit, that’s right. It’s my turn,” he mutters quietly.

I stand up and look straight at him, cold annoyance rising in my throat. You don’t just forget that it’s your turn to make the long flight across the country to visit. This doesn’t happen often, you don’t accidentally forget. God damn it, Strider, you’re never going to be able to get tickets to New York before Thanksgiving now. Everyone and their brother’s mistress is flying in for the damn parade.

The only sight staring back at me is a plane ticket.

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks!”

The echo comes with excitement. We don’t get to visit too often. I fly to Houston to spend July with him and he visits for Thanksgiving and the rest of the holidays. Usually he leaves just after Valentine’s Day. Other than that, it’s just Skype calls every night. I will admit to have falling asleep at the keyboard more than a few times. 

“Will we be hanging out with your friends again?”

My “friends” found out that I had a boyfriend and started tirelessly inviting me to couples nights. Eventually they got tired of me saying no and started getting doubtful. Clearly I can’t possibly have a boyfriend that’s too far away for them to know and meet. They sarcastically asked about a group date at a restaurant, but it finally fell on one of Dave’s few visits. A sarcastic Houston boy was hardly what they expected.

“Probably,” I laugh, “But I’m keeping you to myself for as long as I can.”

“What about Mom?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call her that, it’s creepy.”

“Well you started it, or do I have to remind you?”

“I wish you wouldn’t!”

He laughs and starts rattling off the story. Back when I called his brother Dad I was joking, of course, just trying to get a rise out of him. I stopped the moment that dating became a possibility, but Dave has never let me hear the end of it.

“Okay, Slim Shady, that’s enough. Yes, we have to drop in on her at least once or twice. Now shut your trap, quit your rap, and tell me what you want to do on Thanksgiving.”

“I heard about some sort of parade that supposed to go down on the big day. Maybe we could check that out, what do you think?”

“I’m not even going to pretend to take that seriously.”

The conversation carries on like this for no less than four hours. Eventually we end up talking about what happened that day and what’s going on in the next few. Feelings, thoughts, annoyances, news, and anything else that wanders into our minds. At some point I go to take a shower and he runs out to grab a pizza. By the time he’s back I’ve heated up some eggplant casserole from the other night and am waiting in front of the computer.

This is just like every other night. It’s great fun and all, but it’s just a waiting game. When he graduates from high school, he’s going to move in with me and attend college here. It’s already locked into place and he’s set everything up financially, so it’s a pretty done deal. In less than a year everything will be perfect, but in just two weeks I’ll have a good substitute for it.


	2. Prom?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imagine Person A of your OTP nervously asking Person B to prom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, Helen! 
> 
> Beta'd by Dana

Mixing species is too hard to be worth it, Karkat finds himself thinking again. On one hand, the humans are accepting an entirely new species better than they ever accepted a new race of their own kind. On the other hand, this means that the gods of the new world are trapped in a building with probably two thousand other trolls and humans until they graduate. At long last, after what Karkat estimates was about a sweep of waiting, they had reached that year. What he is, yet again, unprepared for is the load of culture things.

“John, tell me what this prom thing is,” he demands, plopping down next to the friend-leader with his tray of dry, disgusting school food.

“Oh gosh, don’t tell me you guys didn’t have prom on Alternia,” John laughs, stealing a fry from Karkat’s tray and shoving it into his mouth. Normally the troll would argue with him, fighting whatever insult had just been thrown at his homeworld. Today he just stays quiet. The blank look on his face answers John for him. John just laughs and turns towards him.

“Prom is a dance that you go to with a date. You’ve gotta ask someone out in a really fancy way, I think. It’s only available to Juniors of Seniors, unless you get asked as the date of Junior or Senior as a Sophomore or a Freshman. Then you can go in early. Technically we could have gone last year too, but we were a little bit busy helping organize things. I think Dave did go, actually, but the rest of us didn’t. So what you do is you find someone to go with and get all dressed up for it. They’ll take picture and have stuff to eat and drink, but don’t drink anything because a lot of times someone will spike it with something.”

John carries on like this for a few minutes. By the end of it, Karkat is still staring at him blankly, now curious about why humans would have an afterparty for a party, but not quite sure that he even understands the kind of party that prom is anyway. John immediately starts into another rant about how big of a deal prom is in human culture. Dave is trying to hide a fit of laughter on the other side of John. Once he collects himself enough, he leans around the rambling boy and snaps his fingers to grab Karkat’s attention.

“Prom is a dance. You ask the person you like to go to it. If you manage to find someone to take pity on your soul and go with you, then you’ve got to dress up in a suit and get flowers and shit for them. It’s really overrated, but you kind of have to go at some point.”

Somehow Dave’s answer made twice as much sense as John’s. Everyone should take a moment to recognize how much of a miracle that truly is. Karkat nods and mutters a quick thank you before shoving a few fries into his mouth and allowing the two humans to return to their food.

“What the heck?” John exclaims a few minutes later, mumbling around the spaghetti in his mouth. Karkat looks over to find that something is scratched into the styrofoam under the now disappearing pile of pasta. As John pushes the remaining food out of the way, the words become clear. It’s that stupid dance word again and Karkat stares at it in confusion before remembering how John said they had to be creative. John however, is looking up in disbelief at Dave, who is showing a rare smile.

“Well?” he prods, motioning at the tray.

“Yes!” John shrieks and launches himself at his... boyfriend? Karkat has given up keeping track. He pokes at the soggy spaghetti on his tray, pushing it around pointlessly until John begins stabbing him in the arm with his finger.

“What?” Karkat snaps, batting his hand away.

“So who are you asking to prom?” he asks, still grinning widely enough to expose the braces that he’s constantly complaining about.

“Uh...” Karkat could admit that he hasn’t really thought about it, but he doesn’t need to think about it. He glances over a few tables to where most of the girls are laughing about something that is without a doubt dumber than most of the kids in his classes.

“Terezi,” Dave answers for him, following his line of sight. “Jesus, man, I thought you’d let that one go.”

“A certain blond douchebag actually kind of pushed me out of the way,” Karkat reminds him, turning back to the boys.

“Okay, that’s a fair point. Anyway, you better move fast. I’m pretty sure that everyone and their brother’s after her,” Dave shrugs. “For what it’s worth, good luck.”

What a complete turnaround from a few years ago. It’s almost hard to believe that they used to fight over her. Then again, living on a meteor for a sweep and a half does things to people. It’s amazing that they didn’t all kill each other. When the bell buzzes, Karkat gingerly lifts his still-full tray up so that he doesn’t accidentally dump it out. The rest of his day is spent spacing out and daydreaming. He has no idea how to ask anyone to prom, let alone someone who probably has a billion better people after her.

That afternoon he walks home with John and Dave. He’s living with John, just as Terezi’s living with Dave and Kanaya’s living with Rose. Most of the trolls decided to rent apartments together, but some were invited into human homes. Dave spends half of his time over at the Egbert house, of course. Karkat usually hides in his room during this. Instead of just letting him go like he normally would, Dave catches Karkat’s wrist.

“You’ve known her for ages and you know what she likes better than anyone else. Don’t forget that,” Dave mutters. With that, he disappears into John’s room. High pitched squealing comes from behind the closed door seconds later and Karkat sighs, slinking into the comfortable darkness of his room wordlessly.

“What does she like?” he asks himself, flopping into his pillow pile. He definitely remembers what she used to like. Colorful things, scalemates, justice, and roleplaying, just to name a few. The real question is what does she like now? That is something that he knows nothing about. It’s been a while since they’ve actually hung out for real--normally, it’s just in passing at school. He wants to ask Dave, but somehow that feels wrong. Then he realizes what Dave meant. Remind her how things used to be before all of the Sgrub shit.

“Scalemates,” he tells himself and jumps out of the pile. After he’s dug everything out of his closet and scattered it around the room, he finds a battered cardboard box that he saved from the meteor. At the time he had no idea why he wanted these, but now he’s glad that he kept them. He pulls Senator Lemonsnout of of the decaying box and smiles at the little noose that’s still looped around his neck. The others are all in there too. Professor Pucefoot, Inspector Berrybreath, Doctor Honeytongue, Duke Pinesnort, Liaison Pumpkinsniffle, and Pyralspite. He can’t remember who they all were, but he’s amazed enough that he remembers their names.

It takes half an hour to carefully pin messages to the stuffed beasts. “Prom?” is spread out between five of the seven scalemates with two extra for fun. When he leaves the house early to catch a ride with Rose and Kanaya, John just grins knowingly. He has just enough time to put everything into place.

John took care of explaining everything to their other friends, to Karkat got constant updates all day long. According to Dave, she stared in shock when Lemonsnout fell from her locker that morning. Kanaya tells him that she was very confused to find Pyralspite hidden in her backpack. Other friends report her various states of surprise as the other five scalemates were delivered to her. John messages him continuously as he sits in study hall with her.

EB: oh my gosh she’s so confused!  
EB: she keeps trying to figure out who sent them.  
EB: you’re going to tell her, right?  
EB: dude you’ve gotta tell her or she’ll go insane!  
EB: uh oh she’s on her phone what does that mean?

His stream of messages is interrupted by another handle flickering to life.

\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

GC: WH3R3 D1D YOU G3T TH3S3?

Moment of truth.

CG: DON’T YOU REMEMBER? WE WERE ALL GRABBING STUFF FROM THE METEOR AND YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T WANT THEM, SO I TOOK THEM.

She says nothing for a few minutes. Karkat feels his chest grow tighter with each moment she doesn’t reply. If she says no that’s that, but he just doesn’t want this indecision. Finally, he gets another message. 

EB: karkat, she’s laughing and crying. what did you do?

Fuck. 

CG: TEREZI, ARE YOU OKAY?  
GC: H3H3H3 SO H3 1S M3SS4G1NG YOU  
GC: OF COURS3 1 W4NT TO GO TO PROM W1TH YOU!

It was then that the entire biology class saw Karkat Vantas smile for the first time. 


End file.
